Whitney FFGL plugin

It’s a source plugin for Mac and PC apps that support FFGL. It starts off as a simple spiral, but give it time, and it will mess with your head.

It’s based on the concept of Incremental Drift, something first ‘discovered’ by John Whitney in the 1960s:

If one element were set to move at a given rate, the next element might be moved two times that rate. Then the third would move at three times that rate and so on. Each element would move at a different rate and in a different direction within the field of action. So long as all elements obey a rule of direction and rate, and none drifts about aimlessly or randomly, then pattern configurations form and reform. This is harmonic resonance and it echoes musical harmony.

– John Whitney, Digital Harmony, pp. 38

I’m by no means the first person to port this idea to ‘modern’ code. Jim Bumgardner is afaik the first person to set the idea back to music. Memo Akten recently did a whole series on the concept, taking the idea to new visual heights. He beautifully documented his creative process, and I strongly recommend taking a moment and looking at a few of his videos. They are all amazing.

After that, look up John Whitney on Youtube, and be in awe of what that guy did in the sixties. All you kaleidoscope toting, rainbow colour pooping, fractal churning psytrance VJs ain’t got shit on him.

This one will stay free and available on this page, and will not be removed. Feel free to share, copy, paste, re-upload, claim as your own, impress girls with ( good luck with that ), or even sell. I really don’t care. Karma, however, does care, and shits on little stealing bitches.

Download Whitney QTZ Mac Quartz Composer version. It’s got less controls, but it does have comments and everything, in case you’re into that sort of thing.

So how doez I installz pluginz?

Cool kids that use Resolume create a new folder called ‘FFGL Plugins’ inside the Resolume folder in My Documents (PC) or Documents (Mac). They copy the unzipped .bundle file (Mac) or .dll file (PC) into that folder. In Resolume, they add this folder as another FFGL plugin folder in the video tab of the preferences. They restart Resolume and they find the plugin in the Sources tab. They place the lotion in the basket.

Cool kids that use VDMX put the unzipped .bundle file in “/Library/Graphics/FreeFrame Plug-Ins”. If that folder isn’t there, they create one.

Cool kids that use another FFGL app I don’t know about are too cool for my book. They are smart enough to figure it out themselves.